48 DADD'S VETERINARY MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 



consli d>eQ inflammation. But the school of morbid anatomy, 

 by showing that inflammation was a diseased condition of a part, 

 eLtirely overthrew the errors and confusion inherent in all such 

 nosological systems ; while more recent histological research, by 

 exhibiting to us that inflammation is, in truth, a disease of nutri- 

 tion, governed by the same laws that determine growth and wastfl 

 of the tissues, has united physiology and pathology into oui 

 science, and has removed our present knowledge still further from 

 the traditional errors of the ])ast. Now, if it could be shown that 

 the group of symptoms formerly called inflammation always in- 

 duced the same morbid lesions, former experience might still be 

 useful to us. But we contend that this is what clinical observa- 

 tion proves to be impossible. Such are the contradictory state- 

 ments and the confusion resulting from the ur acquaintance of the 

 past race of practitioners with a correct diagnosis and pathology 

 that no confidence whatever can be placed in their impressions 

 as to what cases were benefited by bleeding. Medicine is not a 

 scientific art, which is dependent for its principles on the study 

 of a commentary on the older writers. What they thought and 

 what they said are not, and ought not, in a question of this kind, 

 to be our o-uide as to what was or is. On tiie contrary, it is the 

 book of Nature, which is open to all, that we ought to study ; and 

 why should we read it through the eyes of past sages, when the 

 light uf science was comparatively feeble and imperfect, instead 

 of bringing all our improved modern appliances and advanced 

 knowledge to elucidate her meaning ? 



2d Prop. — That injiammatioa is the same now r/-s it has evef 

 been. 



The essential nature of inflammation has been already alluded 

 to, viz. r a series of changes in the function of a part, terminating 

 in exudation or effusion of lymph. Now, what proof is there 

 that any of these necessary changes have, of late years, undergone 

 any modification? If a healthy animal receiv^es a blow, or any 

 other injury, are the resulting phenomena, in these days, in any 

 way diflerent from those which took place in the days of YouATT 

 and Percivall? Were the effects which followed wounds in 

 1830 diifferent from those which resulted from similar injuries ic 

 1860? This has not yet been shown. Again : if a healthy horse, 

 nowadays, be exposed to wet and cold, and be seized with an 

 inflammation of the lung or pleura, is not the lung hepatized is 



